This extremely rare sarasa—Indian painted cotton produced for the Japanese market—offers an Indian version of an Oriental fantasy. The unparalleled design includes whimsical figures and fanciful creatures in a lush forest. In each repeat, figures carry palanquins (covered litters) and hold umbrella canopies. The dark ground evokes late seventeenth-century Chinese lacquer screens. Its overtly Oriental flavor represents an Indian interpretation of chinoiserie, which itself developed from European reinterpretations of motifs found on decorative art objects imported from China.

cat. no. 33